The Return Of The Exiled Villain

Vaelor did not waste the advantage and acted immediately.

He raised his greatsword and gave a series of sharp, clear orders, his voice cutting through the silence like a sword.

”Front line, hold the reflective barriers and keep the sticky nets active! Do not let him close the distance freely! Second line, focus fire on his movement paths, force him into the densest parts of the suppression field! Support casters, refresh the mana-damping layer every eight seconds! Sensors, track every fluctuation in his energy; if he tries to swap or use a high-level technique, call it out immediately!”

He pointed with his free hand toward specific students.

”Kael, take the left flank with the dual spears. Pin his footwork. Lyria’s remaining shadow specialists, create false openings on the right, make him choose between real and illusory threats. Earth users, raise secondary walls behind him the moment he commits to a direction. We attack in rotating waves. No one overextends. If he breaks one layer, the next closes in. Defend while we bleed him dry!”

The group instantly moved with almost perfect coordination at his words.

The front-line barrier specialists reinforced the reflective constructs and sticky mana nets, creating a moving defensive wall that tried to bounce force back and tangle Gray’s legs at the same time.

Behind them, the second line of combatants raised their weapons and began launching controlled, overlapping attacks, spears of condensed earth, arcs of cutting wind, bolts of restrained lightning, and precise fire lances, all aimed not to overwhelm in one burst, but to herd Gray into the heaviest zones of the weakening fields.

Support casters chanted in low, steady voices, refreshing the pale gray mist of the Attribute Suppression Field and reinforcing the recovery-limiting seals that floated like pale runes around Gray’s position.

Sensing specialists kept their mana threads extended, ready to shout the moment any unusual spatial or energy signature appeared.

From the left, a 4th-year named Kael advanced with dual spears, thrusting in tight, controlled patterns meant to restrict lateral movement.

On the right, two shadow-affinity students created flickering afterimages and false mana signatures, trying to force Gray into making a wrong read.

Earth users slammed their palms into the rocky ground, preparing to raise sudden stone walls the instant he committed to a direction.

Gray stood in the center of it all.

’...Mhnm.’

To test things out, he took a small step forward.

The sticky mana net tried to wrap around his ankle. He twisted his foot at the exact angle needed to let the threads slide off without catching.

A reflective barrier angled toward him, ready to bounce kinetic force.

He simply did not strike it.

Instead, he angled his body so that an incoming earth spear from the second line slammed into the reflective surface instead, the rebound disrupting the caster’s stance.

At that moment, Kael’s dual spears thrust toward his legs.

He instantly parried the blows with his rapier.

Clang!

Both spear tips were deflected just enough to miss. He stepped past the opening and continued walking, forcing the left flank to adjust.

Wind blades and fire lances came in a staggered wave.

Gray’s free hand rose, and he extended two fingers filled with mana.

A thin pulse of mana disrupted the leading edges of the techniques, causing them to destabilize and scatter before reaching him.

The residual force still brushed against his robes, proving the suppression fields were doing some work, but nothing that truly hindered him.

The shadow specialists on the right created a sudden cluster of afterimages and false signatures.

Gray’s glowing eyes tracked the real mana flows instantly. He ignored the illusions completely and continued his steady advance toward the center of the formation.

Vaelor watched every movement with sharp focus, already adjusting the next set of orders.

”Tighten the left! Refresh the damping field, now! Do not let him walk through the net!”

The students obeyed at once.

The left-flank spears adjusted their angles.

The pale gray mist of the Attribute Suppression Field thickened.

Sticky mana threads re-wove themselves across the ground in denser patterns.

Reflective barriers shifted to cover new angles. The entire web of weakening effects pulsed and reformed, trying to close every possible gap.

It was incredible how coordinated these students truly were.

Unfortunately for them... Gray’s [Spirit Eyes] weren’t something that could be underestimated.

’Gotta love Seraph for giving me such a great skill...’

With these eyes, he could see the exact rhythm of the rotating attack waves, the half-second delays between refreshes of the damping field, and the slight imperfections where one barrier failed to perfectly mesh with the next.

So, he directly chose the most perfect path.

His first step carried him between two sticky mana threads that had not yet fully reconnected.

The threads brushed the edge of his boot and slid off without catching.

A gravitational pulse tried to increase the weight of his next step; he adjusted the angle of his foot and let the force slide past him instead of fighting it directly.

Crunk!

An earth spear thrust upward from the ground a fraction of a second too late. Gray’s body tilted by the smallest degree, and the stone tip passed harmlessly beside his ribs.

The second-line casters launched a staggered volley of wind blades and restrained lightning bolts.

At this, Gray extended two fingers, and once again, used his own mana to disrupt the leading edges of the technique, causing the wind blades to destabilize and scatter,

The lightning bolts grounded themselves into the rocky earth several meters away from him.

A reflective barrier angled toward his path, ready to bounce any kinetic force back at him.

Gray simply did not strike it.

He stepped around its edge, forcing the barrier specialist to reposition.

The moment the specialist moved, a small gap opened in the overlapping suppression fields. Gray’s [Spirit Eyes] caught it instantly.

He stepped through instantly.

Vaelor’s voice sharpened.

”Sensors, report every fluctuation! Earth users, raise secondary walls behind him! Do not give him a clean exit path!”

Stone walls began rising from the ground in an attempt to box Gray in.

This caused Gray to adjust his route slightly, walking between two rising walls before they could fully form.

The incomplete constructs collapsed behind him with a grinding of stone.

The sticky nets tried again, thicker this time.

Shing!

Seeing this, he flicked his rapier, using the Soul Chasing Qi to sever them cleanly, causing the broken threads to fall into the ground like severed spider silk.

Fwooosh!

Suddenly, a new wave of fire lances and ice spears came from the right flank.

The ice was designed to create slick footing while the fire forced him to choose between heat and unstable ground.

Gray’s eyes tracked both.

He stepped onto a narrow strip of rock that the ice had not yet covered, then used the residual heat from a passing fire lance to evaporate a thin layer of frost that would have otherwise made the next step treacherous.

His balance never wavered.

One of the shadow specialists tried a sudden close-range afterimage assault, creating three false signatures while the real body lunged with a short blade.

Gray’s Spirit Eyes ignored those false signatures completely.

Grip!

He caught the real wrist mid-thrust, twisted, and redirected the attacker’s own momentum so that the student stumbled directly into a sticky mana net meant for Gray.

The net wrapped around the shadow specialist instead, binding him in place.

Vaelor’s jaw tightened.

”Front line, collapse inward three meters! Support, double the recovery seals! He is reading the fields too cleanly!”

The formation instantly tightened at his words.

The damping field pulsed stronger.

New recovery-limiting seals floated into position, trying to lock onto Gray’s body. Sealing threads shot toward his arms and legs in denser clusters.

Still, Gray continued walking.

When a particularly dense cluster of sealing threads and a simultaneous gravity spike threatened to lock his lower body in place, Gray finally used Nullification.

A quiet pulse of pure erasure expanded from his core.

[-190 Soul Points]

The sealing threads, the gravity spike, and three nearby recovery seals simply ceased to exist in a two-meter radius around him.

The cost was acceptable.

He stepped through the cleared space before the casters could reform the layer.

The students stared.

One of the barrier specialists whispered, voice shaking,

”He just... erased part of the net.”

Vaelor did not allow panic to spread.

”Maintain the rotation! Do not break formation! He cannot destroy everything at once, keep the pressure layered!”

The attacks continued as earth spears rose in staggered patterns, wind blades came from alternating angles, fire and ice tried to create conflicting terrain.

Sticky nets reformed, and the reflective barriers moved around.

The entire web breathed and adjusted around Gray’s advancing figure.

Gray’s path never truly stopped.

He stepped over a half-formed earth wall.

He angled his body so that a reflective barrier took the impact of a lightning bolt meant for him. He let a sticky thread brush his sleeve and then rotated his shoulder so the thread slid off without binding.

When a concentrated volley of five techniques threatened to overwhelm a single point, he used Nullification a second time.

[-160 Soul Points]

The volley vanished. Gray walked through the empty space it had occupied.

Minute by minute, meter by meter, he advanced deeper into the formation.

The students began to show strain.

Refreshing the fields so frequently drained their mana.

The constant adjustments forced by Gray’s unpredictable yet precise movement created small gaps faster than they could close them.

Sweat appeared on several faces, and their breathing grew heavier by each passing second.

Vaelor watched it all with growing intensity.

His greatsword remained on his shoulder, but his free hand had clenched into a tight fist.

He had prepared a textbook multi-layered suppression net designed to cripple a single overwhelming opponent.

It was working, to a degree, as Gray was moving extremely slowly. His energy expenditure was higher.

Yet he was still advancing, still reading every layer, still refusing to be pinned.

The distance between Gray and the center of the formation continued to shrink.

When Gray stepped past the final outer ring of sticky nets and entered the densest core of the suppression fields, Vaelor finally moved.

He could no longer rely solely on the coordinated net.

”All units, hold the fields steady!” Vaelor’s voice rang out.

”I will engage directly. Do not break the suppression; keep him weighted and slowed. I will finish this.”